How to Thread Paint a Greeting Card

Welcome to SewVeryEasy, my name is Laura. Today we're going to talk about thread painting. Thread painting is a lot of fun. It can be done on garments, it can be done on quilts, and it can be done on crafts and hobbies. And yes it's just like painting with regular paint, however you're going to use thread, and instead of a brush you are going to use a sewing machine. And it is very, very easy. You need to make some little adjustments with the machine: Put a quilting foot on your machine and drop the feed dogs and well then after that it's just having fun. So let's get started with a couple of things that you're going to need to do to set up your machine. Now if you are following along with Superior University this is class 102, which is rainbows. And we have two colors of the Rainbows thread. And I don't know if you've ever noticed or not but on the spool of thread it will actually tell you what size needle is recommended and the recommended needle is a 90/14. The reason a 90/14 is really good for this is because you are piercing some kind of a card stock and so you're going to need a nice sharp point and a nice strong needle. And that gives you a bigger eye on the needle so that the thread has an easier time moving while you're quilting away. So let's start with what is recommended here and I'll give you a couple of tips that you're going to be able to follow along even if you're not doing the class. Now you need to set up the tension for your machine and again this is a great method if you start with a quilt sandwich and I have a piece of cotton, some quilt batting, and I have a piece of cardstock because after all i will be sewing on the card stock. And just as I normally do when I test my machines tension, I start at 0 and I do a loop. The second loop is going to be 1. The third loop is going to be 2. And I'm going to do all these loops, changing the tension, until I get to a 10 at the bottom. And that way when I turn it over I will be able to see which tension my machine likes the best. And that is the tension that I am going to use to make these cards. Now to start with you need to get a piece of cardstock. And well I really just used an old card for this because, after all, cards are usually cardstock. And you need to cut a square of fabric that is 5"×3¾". And cut it out so that you have an outside frame. Now the outside frame is not for sewing. It is for auditioning your fabric. So when you have your fabric, you're able to move this window to see where you want to thread paint on your fabric. So this is not for sewing; this is just for a window. Then when you get the piece that you want you're going to be able to know exactly where to cut the fabric. Once you have the design that you want placed, you just need to cut around the outside, and that way you'll have lots of room to be able to glue this on to your cardstock. So now this little frame is not going to be needed anymore so you can put it aside. The next thing you're going to need is your cardstock and a piece of batting the same size as the cardstock. And what you need to do is just put a little dollop of glue, and you can use a glue stick for this, and glue on your batting. The next stage is to be able to glue your fabric over top of your cardstock. And this is why it's nice to have it bigger so you know exactly where you're going to do, and you can play with until you get it exactly the way you want it to be. Once you have found the design the way you want it to be, you need to glue it onto the cardstock—but do not glue it onto the batting. Glue it on from the back because the less glue you have, the nicer it's going to turn out. So I take it once I have it in the spot that I want. I'm going to turn it around and I'm going to put a couple of glue spots on the border, and I'm going to fold the fabric over and I'm going to trim it and tape it and let it dry. So I've taped the fabric onto the back of the card and there's no tape or glue on the front. Now you just need to wait for the glue to dry and it won't take that long. So the glue has dried and now I've taken the tape off and I'm able to bring this to the machine to stitch it. And what you need to do is just stitch in the areas that you feel will need some color or some highlight. Now I've used a black and white fabric so you're going to be able to really see the difference, but you can use any fabric and it can already have a color on it. The threads are just going to highlight it. So I have the thread that I'm going to use for the top and I do have the bobbin already in and I'm going to pull the bobbin thread up to the top. So put your foot down, put your needle down, raise your needle back up, and with a little tug you're able to pull that bottom thread up to the top. And pull it all the way through and then you can start sewing. I like to give a couple of stitches just to anchor it and then I can trim it off. Now I'll trim that tail off. Now that the thread tails are out of the way I'm able just to paint this. And it's exactly how it sounds. You are just going to move the machine back and forth, following the pattern. Now when you are thread painting, you can move in any direction that you want because you want to be able to get a good view of it. And just paint. Now you can do as much thread painting as you want or as little as you want. Now just take it out of the machine and we're going to glue it on top of the card. So here's the flower before, and here is the flower after the thread painting. Now when you have all finished the thread painting. If you need some areas that need a little bit of highlighting, you can definitely use a Sharpie and just lightly put some highlighting in it. It'll give it some dimension. And the back well, yes, it's going to look like confetti when you're done. Now you're able to take this blank card that's just out of the card stock and you are going to be able to glue this on to the front of the card. And then you're going to be able to write in the inside. So once I've glued this onto the front of the card, I like to take a nice heavy book and put it down and let that glue dry. You can put it on top of the card, you can put it on top of boxes and books and glue it down. And once you glue it down, put something heavy over top of it so all of the glue will stick. So there we go. The card is finished. Now what I did is I just glued a piece of fabric on the back, just so that it would continue the theme. And then I will be able to write my wishes in there. So there is a beautiful gift card, but you know what's even nicer than a gift card is something to go with it. And here I have made a matching box to go with the gift card. Now you could even do this on top of a book and then you would have a beautiful gift of a box, a book, and the beautiful note card. So I'm done and I've done another gift. How great is that? Now what I will do is I will take all my additional information and I'm going to keep it in my binder so I can always refer back to it. But the other thing I would recommend to do is take the needle out of your machine and keep it with the notes that you have made and that way you can always use that needle for that particular type of project, the thread work that you're going to use where you're going to sew on cardstock. I wouldn't recommend using it for other clothing because it could have become very dull. But it's always good to make more cards, so keep it with your card notes and well you'll always have it handy. Thank you for joining me today on SewVeryEasy, where we have been able to do some thread painting. Give it a try and let me know what you think. Thanks for joining me today on SewVeryEasy. Feel free to subscribe and, as always, come on back and let's see what we're sewing next time in the sewing room. Bye for now.

Channel: SewVeryEasy

Views: 41,210

Rating: 4.9257731 out of 5

Keywords: fabric, quilting, quilt, sew, sewing, how to, advice, laura, coia, sew very easy, diy, do it yourself, Do It Yourself (Website Category), Sewing Machine (Product Category), trick, tutorial, free, craft, crafts, crafting, learn, education, educational, teach, teaching, machine, cutting tools, rotary cutter, cutting mat, Sullivans, Olfa, Fiskars, Omnigrip, fabric sissors, dritz, Greeting Card (Product Category), homemade greeting cards, diy greeting cards, thread painting, superior threads, class 102

Id: zhOJ7rcbW18

Length: 9min 42sec (582 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 25 2014